Germany has voted, and after politicians successfully confused people for a while, people managed to confuse politicians with the election results. This is a short introduction into the political landscape of germany and a (very short) analysis of the recent election. For the interested, more after the break ...
In germany, people don't vote for the chancellor (kinda president) directly, they vote for a party, with a proportional election system. That means, a party that collects 20% of the votes will get about 20% of the seats in the Bundestag, the parliament, and the Bundestag then votes for the Chancellor. There is a minority clause: a party must collect at least 5% of all votes to enter the Bundestag, this is mainly to prevent small parties and interest groups to enter the parliament and disturb the bigger parties. There are some more rules and exceptions, but thats it basically.
This system makes it very likely that no party alone gets a absolute majority, so usually two or three parties have to form a so called coalition, that is by contract they agree on what policy to pursue in the following years and some fundamental goals they want to achieve, kind of a combined political program. This will become very difficult this year, but to understand the situation we first need a introduction of the players on the field:
- CDU (Christ democrats union): they can be compared to the your republicians, medium right wing
- CSU (Christ socialist union): even if they have 'socialist' in their name, the CSU is the right wing of the bigger parties. But the CSU is special in many ways: it's a regional party for bavaria, and they have a contract with the CDU that bavaria is "out of territory" for CDU, while the rest of germany is "out of territory" for CSU. But in the parliament they form together one fraction (a construct that is even closer then a coalition) and are simple refered to as "The Union". In general, they always do what pays off most for them, sometimes they act like one big party, sometimes (for instance in TV discussions, where each party gets one seat) they want to be treated as two seperate parties. very clever construct indeed.
- SPD (social democrats): these are the "original" socialists .. the SPD was founded 1890 and is therefore by far the oldest party in the german parliament. in the last years the adopted more and more neo-liberal points, so these days the SPD cant really be considered a left wing party, they are somewhere in the middle
- FDP (free democrats): these are THE neo-liberalists, they always pray for a lean government and that the forces of a free market will heal everything
- Die Grünen (the green party): left wing party with very strong opinions about environmental protecion, human rights et cetera. Most prominent member: foreign minister Joshka Fischer, who is responsible for leading the greens from being a small, idealistic party that was always in opposition to one of the major players in german politics without loosing their roots
- PDS (party of democratic socialism): this IS the left wing. depending on their own opinions people see the PDS as left extremists that should be banned, communists or post-communists noone should talk to, or simply real socialists. To many they are the heirs of the old SED, the party that ruled stalinistic east germany, the "German Democratic Republic". Nevertheless they are very strong in the east of the republic, representing about 20% of the votes in eastern germany.
- WASG (election alternative for social justice): short description: thats the left wing of the SPD that left the party after realizing that chancellor Schröder becomes more and more neo-liberalistic.
But there is more to say about WASG and PDS and how it all developed. In 1998 the SPD with its two leading figures Oskar Lafontaine as party leader and Gerhard Schröder as chancellor candidate won the election, went into coalition with the greens and Schröder became chancellor. It was well known that within the SPD Schröder represented the middle and the right wing, whereas party leader Lafontaine represented the left wing. Lafontaine became minister of finances. Half a year later (1999) he suddenly quited his job as minister, resigned from being SPD party leader and completely disappeared from the political stage. Schröder continued with his politics of giving tax presents to the industry while trying to reform the social security systems, but not with much success. So, when in 2002 after a short battle with CDU-lead Angela Merkel CSU party leader Edmund Stoiber became chancellor candidate, Schröder was considered history, because in all polls CDU/CSU had a very comfortable lead. And then two things happened, that prevented Stoiber from becoming chancellor:
- A guy named George W. Bush declared war on Iraq. The germans where not really Bush fans these days, and they where suspicious about presented evidence. Schröder, having a excellent political instinct, used this opportunity to declare in public: not with us, Mr. President. This created a lot of disturbance in the lines of CDU/CSU, and Schröder was heavily blamed for using anti-americanism in a election campaign. Angela Merkel immediately visited Bush to assure him, that such improper behavior isn't tolerated by CDU/CSU, as soon as they are back in power. But that was a miscalculation, people didn't like the idea of US forces attacking Iraq, and they didnt like Merkels attitude either, but they honored the guts it took Schröder to simple reject Bush's request.
- The second reason is from today's point of view somewhat ironic: Schröder won 2002's election because there was a flood in Saxony, the worst one in this Century. Wasn't as bad as it is now in NO, and there was no Hurricane of course .. but while the opposition forces like Stoiber, Merkel and the others where busy discussing the Who's and How's and When's, the chancellor was already standing on the levees, directing help troops, allocating money for flood victims, in short he proved to be a man of the action.
Schröder did win the 2002 Bundetag election by a margin of 6000 votes, and a really pissed Edmund Stoiber went back to Bavaria to continue with his job being Governor.
Three years later, Schröder has lost virtually all of its support, the economic situation is as bad as it was, his approval ratings are as low as 25 percent, the SPD is loosing members dramatically, when Schröder starts his next coup. He manages to dissolve the Bundestag and initiate a premature election. The opposition is delighted, as they are leading in the polls by as much as 12 points, no one thinks that Schröder this time can catch up.
Meanwhile, the newly formed WASG gets a new, very prominent member: Oskar Lafontaine, former SPD party leader and financial minister decides it is time to rejoin the political stage. This results in a publicity boost for the WASG as Lafontaine immediately gets invited into TV shows to speak about his intentions. At that stage the WASG is not more as a annoyance to Schröder and his SPD, as the WASG is expected to get two or 3 percent in a Bundestag election, so they would be blocked by that 5% clause (see above). Lafontaine of course knows this (i am sure he thought about it long before he joined the WASG) and he solves this by proposing the PDS lead to go together. The PDS has the same 5% problem, they missed entering the parliament by one percent in 2002. Of course there are animosities between PDS and WASG members, but election is near, time is short, so within two weeks WASG and PDS form the new
"Die Linke.PDS" (the lefts). This even increases popularity in east Germany, its realistic to assume 20% for the lefts there. Former chancellor candidate and bavarian governor Stoiber has nothing better to do then insulting the people in eastern Germany by stating in reference to the left party "Only the stupidest calves choose their own butchers.". He does that to strengthen his position within Bavaria and within the CSU, because victory in the election is taken granted, and Stoiber wants to become a powerful minister. The same games continues within the CDU, everyone tries to get the biggest piece of the cake. But then the numbers start to change, Merkel and other people within the CDU figure, it might not be enough to criticize the government but to reveal some of their own ideas. So Angela Merkel presents a so called "shadow cabinet", that is the persons supposed to become ministers when the election is won. Part of the cabinet is Paul Kirchhof, a professor from Heidelberg, who presents a
very simplified new tax system (Germany has probably the most complicated tax laws in the world, so simplifying that is always a good idea), but unfortunately this concept so neo-liberalistic (25% flat tax) that it is a easy task for Schröder to pick that concept and really scare people with it. And so he managed what no one could imagine .. preventing a chancellor Merkel with a CDU/CSU + FDP coalition.
Here are the election results
SPD: 34.3 percent (2002 38.5 percent)
CDU: 27.8 percent (2002 29.5 percent)
CSU: 7.4 percent (2002 9.0 percent)
GRÜNE: 8.1 percent (2002 8.6 percent)
FDP: 9.8 percent (2002 7.4 percent)
Die Linke.: 8.7 percent (2002 4.0 percent) and
Others: 3.9 percent (2002 3.0 percent)
So, four days after election Sunday, the situation is as follows: the former coalition SPD + Greens has no majority, the other "natural" coalition CDU/CSU + FDP has no majority either, and from the "older" parties no one even wants to talk to the lefts. Compared to the 2002 Results, both SPD and CDU/CSU have lost. that leaves following possibilities:
- CDU/CSU + SPD: so called big coalition, something no one in Germany really likes. in big coalitions the parties tend to blockade themselves. and it would be unclear who would become chancellor in such a coalition, as Schröder wants to stay, whereas Merkel wants to become chancellor, and Schröder is probably the more power hungry
- SPD + FDP + Green: thats the so called ample coalition (because of the color codes the parties use, SPD is red, FDP is yellow, and the green party is, well, green). Thats what Schröder has in mind, but is rather unlikely as FDP party leader Westerwelle definitely excluded that possibility.
- CDU/CSU + FDP + Green: and thats the most exotic version, the Jamaica coalition (black+yellow+green assembles the flag of jamaica). This would be the prefered version of Angela Merkel .. but it is very unlikely that the greens try this, as it could easily kill the party, most green voters didn't have a coalition with the blacks in mind but a red-green one ..
So, everything is unclear. Someone has to move sooner or later, but the outcome couldn't be less clear.
PS: bare with me, English is not my native tongue. If i did serious mistakes then please tell me, or even better, correct me.
Update [2005-9-23 3:58:25 by TheGerman]: corrected some spelling errors